Those things which should go on fire don't, and those things which really shouldn't ever go on fire, and certainly not right whoosh there in front of me, do. And I really hope there are some more of you out there in the same situation because otherwise I have just discovered, albeit a little late in the day, that I am actually a Firestarter and am going to have to take myself some day off to a high castle and wait for you to climb the hill one foul bewhiskered night, the low skies bruised with bad red moonshadow, the nearing storm simmering behind dark hills like a widow's grudge, and me with my lowered brows and fear and curses, and you with your pitchforks and too-close-together eyes and barnyard smells, and you just know what'll happen; we're not at home to Mr Mob, and you'll have someone's eye out with that if you're not careful, and it'll all end, of course, in tears, and a lingering smell of kippers.

The first list, those things which should go on fire but don't, includes: absolutely anything you are trying to set light to with a 'handy' magnifying glass, either a dry leaf or a dry hair, during one of those woeful Scout weekends where you're meant to learn 'life skills' by doing things such as baking bread in rabbit-holes and cleaning your teeth with birch-twigs and running very quickly up a hill to escape a pederast in a kerchief. And candles. What is it with candles? The more expensive, the more rubbish. Little night lights, 10p for 80 or whatever, last forever; ruinously expensive smelly Heal's ones stop working after 10 cloying minutes, and sputter and wax up and die. I'm sure there's a way to learn how to make them last longer, but if I went off on a candle-cossetting course it would also all end in tears, albeit mainly my father's when he next discovered me sashaying in leather chaps through a San Francisco scouthouse.

Candles, then, and cigarettes when you're in the loo of a train or plane or restaurant, or similar hidey-place which comes perfectly well equipped with 'no smoking' signs but, unaccountably, no lighters. Fireworks, except when they are temporarily somewhere deemed somehow unsuitable, such as protruding from the mouth of a vagrant's dog/neighbour's child. These should all burn easily, but don't. The list of things which shouldn't burn easily, yet apparently do, includes a half-filled bathtub, a boiled egg and, most recently, my mother.

Setting fire to my own mother was something of a low point. I can't remember the precise circumstances - well, yes, I probably one day could, but I'm still in the process of what I believe the Americans call 'blocking' - but they did involve of course way too much brandy and clumsiness on my part, and a party, and my poor mother leaning forward to hear yet one more drunken twittering inanity from me, with her smile and fun and patience, and her filmy flimsy sleeve. Look. I've said sorry. To everyone. Except, perhaps, to myself, twitching tears aside at 4am, wondering whether it might finally be time to flee to the castle, or at least begin to change my ways.

A little later, my parents were back in London, mum's bandages doing their job nicely, and this time I set fire to my own coffee-maker, and she had to flee the flat and its belching plastic smoke, which was bad enough, but not as bad as the damned fire alarm. Two hours later, it was off. We had cut wires. We sat, shocked, finally in silence, and I thought of some things. One is this: the Fire Brigade will not come to stop a fire alarm unless there is still a fire. Two: their phone representative will not take particularly kindly to the rather humorous suggestion, under the circumstances, that one should therefore set fire to something, again, to get them to come round. Three, and one I am still pondering: changing one's life, getting responsible and sober and clean and busy, and Good, and all the other things decided in guilt at 4am, has some truly horrid unseen consequences. Not being able to run completely away and get drunk and leave it all to someone else when something goes wrong, like a fire. That's one, and nasty enough. Another, infinitely worse, and about which I am learning more with each passing Good day, is the complete and total and wholly unexpected and first-time-in-life utter absence of any libido whatsoever.

I will of course bore you all about that, at length: unless, pray God, there soon comes, again, a fire down below.